Base admits to betting on the wrong direction: abandoning social media and returning to the financial sector.

Base, long regarded as the "King of L2", has officially ended its three-year "exploration era".

On July 16th, Base co-founder Jesse Pollak published an article reviewing the ecosystem's development over the past two years, acknowledging that his previous bet on on-chain native social networking was a mistake. He stated that social features such as Farcaster, Zora, Miniapps, and Creator Coins have failed to become core drivers of crypto adoption, causing Base to lag behind some competitors in areas such as perpetual contracts, prediction markets, tokenization, and payments. Furthermore, he emphasized that the Base app will be managed by Cobie, the community leader acquired by Coinbase at a significant cost.

Previously, Coinbase CEO Brian Amstrong admitted in response to community criticism that "betting on content tokens was a mistake."

In 2026, Base, which had repeatedly wavered on the issue of issuing its own token, has unfortunately entered an awkward period of development. This may once again confirm a truth: no transactions, no encryption.

Coinbase's transformation: The founders are writing code, while the one-stop app is handled by the Coinbase team.

Let's first focus on Jesse's "Base Ecosystem Self-Criticism".

In this lengthy article, Jesse first acknowledges his mistake— while betting on blockchain technology to drive the success of crypto applications, he mistakenly bet on social experiences to drive crypto applications in his choice of niche.

Looking back, the Base ecosystem seems to have always been in a state of "self-indulgence"—

Regarding leadership, Jesse constantly talks about the "creator economy," using it as a banner to interact with community members and encouraging all creators to issue tokens and NFTs, claiming that "the on-chain creator economy will rewrite industry development." However, the reality is that the on-chain creator ecosystem within Base is extremely poor; most creators earn less than developers on pump.fun who jumped on the bandwagon to issue tokens.

In terms of development strategy, Base has always touted itself as "Onchain Summer," but in reality, Base has consistently followed Solana and BNB Chain with a follower strategy. When the Solana Meme coin craze came, Base also started playing with Meme coins; when the Chinese Meme coin of BNB Chain gained popularity, Base seized the opportunity to imitate it. Previous collaborations with physical brands such as McDonald's often remained superficial marketing activities without any real action.

Regarding transaction activity, previous data indicated that over 80% of the activity on the Base chain was generated by a small number of addresses engaging in mutual fraud, resulting in a very limited number of real users. Even the transaction volume of Coinbase's main initiatives, such as x402 and AI Agent payments, has consistently failed to achieve a phenomenal breakthrough and remains largely confined to its own niche.

The failures of SocialFi platforms such as Farcaster and Zora are well-known. The founder of Farcaster went to Tempo to work on payments; the latter "completed its mission" after issuing its token, but the token has already fallen by more than 80%.

Jesse's vision of "reaching billions of people globally through social media" has not materialized. After all, there are countless social media products on the Web2 platform, not to mention a series of giant products with better user experiences, greater first-mover advantages, and richer content from creators.

Often, you may think you're playing with memes, creating memes, and engaging in the community, but in reality, you're building your own information cocoon, artificially creating small circles, and deliberately raising the entry barrier.

Handing over the flagship product of the Base App to the Coinbase team is more like bringing the Base ecosystem back into Coinbase's fold, accepting the latter's unified arrangements, and existing as a part and a link in the Coinbase ecosystem. This move expands the openness of the Base App to some extent, and naturally also makes the Base App no longer exclusively part of the Base ecosystem.

For crypto projects, focusing on finance, trading, and investment remains the main theme of the industry. In the past two years, on-chain Perp platforms and prediction market platforms, which have become popular due to their lack of constant volatility, have accurately caught this trend and can even benefit from high volatility and high risk market conditions to earn more protocol revenue and platform revenue.

In light of this, Base has finally come to its senses and is no longer fixated on "decentralized social networking" and "creator economy," but has instead turned to three main directions: transactions, payments, and AI agents.

A New Chapter in Base's Development: Focusing on Transactions, Payments, and AI Agent Development

To admit one's mistakes and correct them is the greatest virtue.

Despite having made many mistakes in the past, it seems that Jesse and the CEO of Coinbase have recognized the problems and offered their own solutions.

Previously, Brian Amstrong responded to community questions, stating, "B**ase's main business focuses on trading, payments, and AI Agent services (in that order). I believe these three are closely interconnected. For example, to conduct payment transactions, foreign exchange resources are needed; and the agent service involves a large amount of trading and payment business. Incidentally, most of our resources are currently used for trading. Perhaps these businesses haven't yet been externally applied, but that's the reality."

In a lengthy article today, Jesse also stated that Base will be positioned as "the blockchain for global finance" in the future, with a focus on three main areas in 2026: transactions, payments, and AI agents. Among these,

• Trading covers tokenized stocks, Meme coins, and application tokens;

• Payments revolve around global stablecoins for individuals and businesses;

AI Agents will utilize cryptocurrency as a native currency for computers to serve participants in the future large-scale machine economy.

Base's future business focus is not just empty talk, but a relatively optimal choice based on current industry trends and its own strengths.

In terms of trading, although Base has a limited number of active users, its advantages such as low gas transaction costs, the Ethereum ecosystem, and the backing of Coinbase's US compliance background can ensure that it maintains its infrastructure advantages and value in tokenized stocks, Meme coins, and the development of legitimate projects.

In terms of payments, Base's low interaction costs, x402 protocol foundation, and support for USDC under Circle have laid the foundation for personal and institutional payments and the adoption of stablecoins. With the addition of a "one-stop application" like the Base APP, if more supply-side brands, merchants, and institutional users can be connected in the future, it is expected to promote the large-scale adoption of stablecoins in the United States and even the world.

In terms of AI agent services, this step seems more like a preemptive move towards the future AI agent economy. Although AI agents are still in the early stages of development, considering OpenAI's GPT 5.6, Anthropic's Fable 5 model, and recent news that Apple's AI partner is Alibaba's Qianwen model, the day when AI agents can widely use cryptocurrencies for payments, transactions, and consumption is fast approaching. Previously, according to official Alibaba news, as of May this year, Alipay's AI-driven autonomous payment transactions had accumulated 300 million transactions (covering AI intelligent agent payments, AI ordering, AI consumption scenarios, such as payments completed through AI applications like Qianwen and Rokid).

Of course, the change in Base's strategic direction is also accompanied by changes in the personnel behind this large organization, Coinbase.

Coinbase staff changes: some leave the industry, others continue coding.

Previously, Coinbase's head of engineering, Brock Miller, announced his departure from the company and joining Anthropic as a member of its technical team. With cryptocurrency no longer the hot trend, some are choosing to follow the tide and join the AI revolution.

In early July, Coinbase Chief Legal Officer Paul Grewal announced his departure to join a startup. He added, "I will continue to serve as an advisor to Coinbase and will be involved in the Coinbase Trust bylaws through the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency." Subsequently, Coinbase announced that Molly Abraham would lead the company's legal team as General Counsel, and Ryan Van Grack would become Vice Chairman, expected to assume broader and more public-facing responsibilities.

This is a case of someone who, despite leaving the company, still maintains a working relationship with Coinbase.

As for the person who wrote the code, it was none other than Jesse, the founder of Base —who himself stated, "We have already started rewriting the code and launched some products."

Of course, the departures or changes of the above personnel may not entirely reflect their own wishes, but may also be due to the impact of the development of AI Agents.

Recently, Rob Witoff, head of the Coinbase platform, stated that over 95% of the company's code is now written or completed with AI assistance, a significant increase from the 40% figure announced in February. In an interview, he said, "In fact, 100% of Coinbase employees use AI every day." He added that most Coinbase engineers currently run 5 to 10 AI agents simultaneously. The combined capabilities of these AI agents are equivalent to approximately 1,200 employees.

He predicts that by 2030, Coinbase's AI Agent could handle the workload of 100,000 employees. However, he stated that key areas such as core cryptography will still require human involvement, with AI primarily used for code testing, vulnerability checking, and prototyping.

Not only will the Base ecosystem serve the AI Agent economy in the future, but perhaps most of Coinbase's employees will also be replaced by AI Agents.